Friday, August 31, 2007
Here's Ben getting a little sleep bathing in at 2 weeks old. He's been getting bigger and stronger all the time. We know he's got a strong bladder, as he can now pee on his own head... He's now weighing in at just over 5 pounds, and is starting to move around a bit more as well. That may be partly due to the fact that the doctors have started him on a daily dose of Caribou Blend. Well, not exactly, he's on caffeine though... You see, the one reason he hasn't been able to come home from the hospital yet (OK, the other reason. I'll get to the first reason in a minute) is that he has been having some episodes of not being able to coordinate his breathing very well with his swallowing, especially with the bottle. That in turn causes a vagal reaction, which in short is a slowing of the heart rate. Sometimes that causes him to turn a little ashen in color and he is not able to catch his breath for a while (apnea). So because of his little apnea episodes, he has been put on caffeine to see if it helps him to be a little more alert when he eats and can figure out how to make everything work together. So far it seems to be helping. The other reason he hasn't been able to go home yet is that he failed his car seat test. He probably procrastinated on the studying a little too much, and then he probably didn't realize he was going to be tested anyways, so we'll let it slide this time. Anyways, he has another test next Tuesday, so hopefully he'll be prepared this time. If he doesn't pass that one but everything else looks good, then he'll come home next week in a car bed. Because of the apnea episodes after eating, they want to make sure he gets monitored, so we will also be taking home a monitor to make sure we don't neglect him for too long... That's about all for now, he's really doing everything a baby his age should be doing at this point, so we're thrilled. Can't wait to get the little guy home either, but we may all have heart attacks when that monitor goes off for the first time.
